10-Story Detective Magazine Cover — page 106: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Dead Man’s Martyrdom By Leon Dupont The avaricious scientist made one mistake in his shrewd murder scheme — he tried to kill a dead man. EXT to life itself there was N only one thing Dr. Albert Klausman wanted. That was fame. Ambition, the glory of achieve- ment, flooded his soul like a great roll- me wave. And nothing, Dr. Klaus- man vowed, nothing would be allowed to block his march to this noble goal. Gazing fixedly through his eight- inch spectacles, Dr. Klausman knew he was upon the threshold of fame — everlast- ing fame in which he could bask sat- isfied the rest of his life, a stead- fast beacon star to his fellow prac- titioners. And, just as mighty as he felt himself, so he felt all other lives were insig- nificant, merely sacks of dross and brittle bones. Not through his prismatic lenses but in the eye of his imagina- tion, he visioned one of these unim- portant beings now. Contrasted with the doctor’s gross lumpishness, the other was puny, scrawny. Bent over a fuming beaker in a laboratory, he coughed at every few breaths, mo- mentarily turning away to suck in a few mouthfuls of slightly purer air. His straw-colored hair hung low over his eyes like a poodle’s, eyes dull but only latently so. A quickly darting tongue ran over dry lips as he lifted the beaker in fingers so tense it seemed the glass would be crushed to many innumerable bits. The image was not pleasant to Dr. Albert Klausman but it was accurate, that of a man whose nerves had been torn to sheds and were now at the breaking point. This man was Isaac Volner, his laboratory assistant, one of the best research men in the field of preventive medicine but—and this brought a smile to the doctor’s smug lips—one of the least known. His loss to sci- ence would be only potential, and loss there would be. For Isaac Volner stood in Dr. Al- bert Klausman’s path to fame. The doctor shook the vision from his brain, and as though to prevent its re- turn, ground out his Turkish cigarette vigorously. For fourteen months he had awaited the time when he could announce to the medical world the results of his ex- periments. For fourteen months he had whetted the appetites of scien- tists, throwing them vague hints and vaguer answers to their questions. Now he was ready to announce his findings. Now? Not yet. There was Isaac Volner to deal with first. To his in- ner self Dr. Klausman admitted the discovery was less his own and more 104 Eomichoo (@) “S (E@) =)